Jonathan Riskind commentary: Web widens chasm between ideologies

Sunday

Aug 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2009 at 11:44 AM

The comments posted on Dispatch.com, in reaction to my story about Ohio politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, reminiscing fondly about the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, rejoiced in the Massachusetts Democrat's death.

The comments posted on Dispatch.com, in reaction to my story about Ohio politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, reminiscing fondly about the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, rejoiced in the Massachusetts Democrat's death.

One astonishingly twisted comment -- anonymous, of course, like almost all of them -- called Kennedy a "hog-jowled boob." "Joe from Columbus" went on to wish for the murder of an entire group of politicians from both parties by drawing the "greedy perverts" to the White House with a "pork-barrel fest" and giving the "BinLaden 'air force' a call."

The rants quickly got so bad that Dispatch editors were forced to disable the ability for anyone to post a comment.

Kennedy is being lampooned in death by angry ideological opponents who paint him as a cartoon caricature of evil merely because his ideology runs counter to theirs. But liberals do the same when it comes to conservatives such as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney.

Kennedy made a lot of mistakes in his personal life, obviously, and emotions still run strong years after the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969, after Kennedy drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island.

But the demonizing of Kennedy seems to directly correspond to a person's partisan or ideological slant on Kennedy's liberal Democrat politics. The same holds true for the opposite end of the ideological spectrum among those who never can let go of Bush's personal transgressions or who credit his public-policy decisions with only the most impure of motives.

It is a wonder anyone is willing to engage in public life anymore, let alone run for public office or serve in the government.

The level of anger, bitterness and sheer unadulterated hatred in our public discourse, just seems to crescendo ever upward to new and uglier heights.

Historians can point to plenty of ugliness in the history of American politics, to be sure.

But e-mail messages and blog and Web postings, all providing the ability to be anonymous yet have one's stream-of-consciousness bile instantly broadcast to hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of people, surely has ratcheted up the number and intensity of the personal attacks and sent spiraling down the ability to have serious, substantive discussions.

"There has been a steady decline in the civility of American politics," said John Green, a thoughtful political scientist from the University of Akron who heads the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

One of the most uncivil eras in American politics, of course, was before the Civil War. But by the 1950s, that had changed. Democrats and Republicans came back from World War II knowing what a real enemy looked like, and it wasn't their colleagues across the aisle, an observation Green recalls veteran journalist David Broder making at the University of Akron several years ago.

Political polarization has increased, and that, in part, is what prompts opponents to demonize the other side.

But it is the new mechanisms of discussion that speed and spread the ugliness far and wide.

When newspapers first added comment sections to the stories on their Web sites, Green enjoyed reading them; often they were a string of substantive and well-reasoned arguments. Now, he avoids the comments because they so frequently degenerate into invective, he said.

"Part of what happens with civility is that people are held accountable," Green said, noting that even when people put their names on an e-mail or blog posting or Web comment, the medium provides a detachment and encourages hasty reactions.

To the people who worked with Kennedy in the Senate, including such conservative Republicans as Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, he was their friend even if he often was a political opponent. He was a man with flaws, certainly, but a man who struggled to overcome his problems and always was willing to reach across the aisle to find political accommodation and personal friendship.

To those who would only rant and demonize, Kennedy was just another easy caricature to sketch in the most simplistic terms. And that's not a good sign for American politics, no matter where you stand.